Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to Consolidate Securitization

This is the year Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac begin building the market structure which credit unions and banks may eventually have to use to sell their mortgage loans, according to Edward DeMarco Acting Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, the effective manager of the two government owned institutions.

DeMarco described some of the market structure in March 4 remarks before the National Association for Business Economics in Washington DC.

“We believe that setting up a new structure that is separate from the two companies is important for building a new secondary mortgage market infrastructure, DeMarco outlined in his prepared remarks. “Our objective, as we stated last year, is for the platform to be able to function like a market utility, as opposed to rebuilding the proprietary infrastructures of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. To make this clear, I expect that the new venture will be headed by a CEO and Chairman of the Board that are independent from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. It will also be physically located separate from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Importantly, we plan on instituting a formal structure to allow for input from industry participants.”

DeMarco told the economists that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would fund the new enterprise and said that some of its work would replace some of their own securitization infrastructure. But he reiterated that the focus would be on remain on the future.

“[T]he overarching goal is to create something of value that could either be sold or used by policy makers as a foundational element of the mortgage market of the future. We are designing this to be flexible so that the long-term ownership structure can be adjusted to meet the goals and direction that policymakers may set forth for housing finance reform.”